Let’s Be Honest

Cheating Gets You Nowhere

“Have you ever thought about
leaving a legacy and how you will be remembered when the present becomes the
past? Does the achievement of our goals for success in life matter more than
the manner in which that success is achieved? There’s no question that we all
set out to be successful at whatever life has in store, but at what expense?
Does it really matter if we might have to be a little dishonest at times or if
we have cheated a tiny bit to get ahead?
Would it be different if that’s what it took just to keep up?”

So starts the
principal’s editorial in the latest issue of my son’s high school newsletter.
There is no “How time flies”, no “Congratulations”, no “Thank you so and so”,
or any other routine pleasantry. This is serious, stern scolding.

This came as a
shock to me. Ever since the information session, I have been convinced that
besides academic excellence, this school also emphasizes on integrity and
trust. It even practices “open-locker” policy. Walking through the hallway, you
can see that all the lockers are indeed unlocked, and no one seems to worry if
his stuff is exposed in plain view. Students who managed to make it to this
place are expected to excel, not just “stay in school”. So when the principal
speaks like this, something must be up.

It turned out,
some students managed to take advantage of the class schedule and cheated in a
small quiz, which after it was discovered, prompted the principal to ask: “Is
it worth it?”

The question may
not be as simple as it seems. In an ideal world, everyone gives his best
efforts and gets the results he deserves. You go far because you work hard; you
lag behind because you might have slacked off. Everything is fair and square.
And honesty is a virtue.

However, the world
we live in is not, and never will be perfect. Success is not measured by
efforts, but by results. You can still achieve these results with hard work and
smarts, plus some luck. Of course, there is no guarantee that your work will
pay off. Mix money, fame, social status, and a dash of greed, and you’ve got
yourself a recipe for dishonesty – let’s cheat a little, it’s harmless, and it
may work out great!

We have seen
certain professional athletes, with necks thicker than many people’s thighs,
belting baseballs out of the park day after day, and therefore receiving fat
contracts, big commercial endorsements, and apparently secure Hall of Fame
berths. However, it is no secret that their curiously superb performances have
mostly been the result of banned substances.

We have also
witnessed the incredible rise of Enron and WorldCom. Until the early 1990’s,
they were still little known also-runs stumbling for direction. By using some
“smart” tactics to hide losses and inflate earnings, in a matter of a few years
they vaulted themselves to the top, and quickly became the Wall Street darlings
at the turn of the twenty-first century. The top executives, of course, were
perceived as business geniuses and great visionaries, while their pockets
swelled with filthy wealth.

They had
achieved what they considered success by deceit. But is it worth it?

Well, after the
most recent doping scandals broke, facts found from various investigations
clearly implicated those athletes. Some of the apparent future Hall of Famers
were actually forced to testify at congressional hearings, in front of national
television. They have become the butt of jokes on late night talk shows, and
are being called all sorts of names for a cheater. No matter how hard they try
to deny the allegations, whatever records they had previously set will forever
carry an asterisk and a footnote next to them. They have disgraced themselves
and may even have to face certain health risks down the road.

And we all know
the fate of Enron and WorldCom. They became even more famous when it was
revealed that the mind-boggling “success” that they had had been sustained
mainly by systematic and well-planned accounting fraud. These once high-flying
companies have since crashed and landed in bankruptcy, bringing along with them
tens of thousands of their employees and investors. As for their top
executives, the former head of WorldCom has been sentenced to twenty-five years
in prison, while those who had run and ruined Enron are still on trial,
possibly facing a similar fate.

Going back to
the high school case, the students cheated just to pass one small quiz. There
was no harm done, right? It happens everywhere these days anyway, so what’s the
difference whether I cheat or not? The truth is, everyone would agree that character
building starts young. You could cheat at home just to get an extra piece of
chocolate; you might cheat at school just to pass an exam; and you will
probably cheat at work for a promotion. Then what? You see the trend, and you
see what’s coming. Honesty is a virtue, and dishonesty carries consequences.
Those cheating students have seen their “good” scores erased, and more
importantly, they will never be regarded the same way again.

So why cheat?
Isn’t it better that we are all just a little more honest?

By the way, among those who were found cheating in
that quiz, some of them had been scheduled to be inducted into the National
Honor Society. Well, not any more.

How do you describe friendship?
It’s not easy, is it? They say the Eskimos have a hundred words for snow. I am
sure we have quite a variety of words in English, or Chinese, for friendship,
too, but we are usually...